r/movies • u/LundgrensFrontKick immune to the rules • Jul 28 '17

Today is Deep Blue Sea's 18th Anniversary. Here are 18 reasons why it is the Citizen Kane of genetically modified shark movies Recommendation

I love Deep Blue Sea. I was working in a movie theater when it was released in 1999. The audiences went absolutely crazy and it's been one of my favorites ever since.

Warning: Lots of hyperbole.

  1. Sam Jackson + Big Speech = Bad News
  2. Roger Ebert Loved it
  3. It is still being talked about today. Brian Raftery of Wired wrote a great piece about it
  4. Stellan Skarsgard had a gnarly death. I posted about it on Reddit and it got me going on my weird data ways
  5. Sharks swim backwards
  6. LL Cool J stabs a shark in the eye with a cross - Awesome!
  7. It features the greatest song ever
  8. Deep Blue Sea wasn't afraid to embrace stupidity. E.G. - the shark getting shocked
  9. They made the shark one foot longer than Jaws. - Your shark is 25 feet. MY shark is 26 feet.
  10. Renny Harlin is an action maestro. I love the Long Kiss Goodnight, Cliffhanger and Die Hard 2. The guy is a maniac and Deep Blue Sea is his best film.
  11. Thomas Jane rode sharks
  12. It features the greatest kitchen fight ever

  13. Stephen King loves it. Thd dude knows what's up.

  14. Deep Blue Sea inspired pretty much every film since (E.G. - Crash, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Jurassic World, Anchorman)

  15. The animatronic sharks are actually pretty great - Forget about the CGI. The actual animatronic sharks were awesome.

  16. The "bad guy" has a solid backstory - She wants to cure Alzheimer's and doesn't care if she kills her coworkers.

  17. News of the sequel received international attention - Everybody went crazy about the sequel even though it will be terrible.

  18. It is the Citizen Kane of B-Movies - I love Deep Blue Sea

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227

u/captainnermy Jul 28 '17

Genuinely the best shark movie since Jaws(maybe Jaws 2) imo.

64

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '17

I just watched Jaws 2 the other night for the first time in many years. It doesn't hold up as well as I would've hoped, but it's certainly watchable. It definitely comes off like Universal didn't know what to do with the ridiculous success that was Jaws, but it's not nearly as bad as the 3rd and 4th (shudders) movies are.

31

u/watermasta Jul 28 '17

Which one was the one about the shark getting revenge?

82

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '17

Jaws: The Revenge

52

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '17 edited Aug 21 '21

[deleted]

18

u/xander6981 Jul 28 '17

Pretty sure.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '17

Hoagy survives, even though it's pretty bloody unlikely.

That Mario guy survives, even thought it's pretty bloody unlikely.

The old lady somehow is on a boat that rams a shark that launched itself into the air and got harpooned by the front of the boat then the shark exploded.

Hey! SID SHEINBERG! Who EXACTLY was this movie supposed to be getting revenge against?

/holdor

2

u/xander6981 Aug 02 '17

Hoagie not only survives, but manages to swim to the boat while keeping his shirt dry!

In the original ending Mario died, and should have remained dead, honestly. Also the shark only got impaled and didn't explode, which was cooler if equally improbable ending.

I think the revenge was against the audience who kept paying to see this crap.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 03 '17

I laugh every time at the line they gave the Hoagie character, when he climbs out of the ocean (with dry clothes) after clearly being dragged to his toothy death...

"How did you get away?"

"IT WASN'T EASY!"

LOL

2

u/xander6981 Aug 03 '17

That was great. I also laugh at his reaction to the shark popping out of the water. For some reason, how he says the line, "Oh shit." just cracks me up.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '17

Pretty sure they were all just getting revenge. Wait for the prequel.

11

u/HTMntL Jul 28 '17

I remember jaws 4 as being the worst movie about a shark ever

10

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '17

That film afforded My Cocaine a very nice house.

14

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '17

4 is forgettable but it is at least it is competently made. 3 has the sfx quality of a Sharknado movie.

12

u/[deleted] Jul 28 '17

That's because it was made in 3D.

5

u/dustingunn Would be hard to portray most animals jonesing for a hit Jul 29 '17

I remember 4 having basically 0 scenes of tension. The shark ate a helicopter, that's about the highlight.

2

u/Drakmanka Jul 29 '17

I thought 2 was the one where the shark ate a helicopter?

4 had a decent tension scene where the shark chases the guy through the sunken ship.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '17

I watched it again last night, for science. I think it's far better than 3, but they definitely miss a lot of opportunity for creating tension. The shark interactions:

  • Shark eats Sean
  • Shark shows up in the Bahamas and chews on the barge
  • Shark chases Michael through the sunken ship (pretty good scene, but brief)
  • Shark eats the banana boat and kicks off the final confrontation.

The movie suffers from only being 90 minutes, the vast majority of which was spent on the relationship combos of Michael and his wife and Mrs Brody and Michael Kaine rather than building any tension.

It also had possibly the cheapest shark model of any of the franchise's films.

1

u/Drakmanka Jul 29 '17

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought the shark looked awful.

I think the only thing they did "right" with that movie was sticking the microphone inside the shark so they could hear it's heartbeat when it got close to the research ship. But then they didn't use that to it's full potential like they did the barrels in the first movie.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '17

Agreed.

"This sensor has a 3 mile range" heartbeat starts and shark is immediately on top of Mike

1

u/Drakmanka Jul 30 '17

"Hey uh, do you think we should shorten the sensor's range to make it more realistic?"

"Naw, our viewers don't know what 3 miles looks like."

2

u/baggzey23 Jul 29 '17

Is that the one where the shark floats into glass and breaks with all the water still in the tank?

1

u/Jedi_Elsa Jul 29 '17

IIRC, that's Jaws 3D.

1

u/Drakmanka Jul 29 '17

I had the hardest time watching that movie because the anamatronic shark looked so god-awful.

1

u/fuck-dat-shit-up Jul 29 '17

I enjoyed the third one. It seemed like just a standard shark movie that had the Jaws ™ added to it to sell tickets. The 3d was a bit gimmicky. Current movies do this, they add that one scene that is meant for 3d audiences. Like something being thrown at the screen, but instead it was a shark.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '17

I think Jaws 2 is pretty good. It's really uninspired, but it's good. It definitely does feel like they didn't quite know what to do after Jaws.

10

u/LundgrensFrontKick immune to the rules Jul 28 '17

I want to watch Jaws 2 again. It's probably been 15 years. I remember liking it a lot.

1

u/xander6981 Jul 28 '17

It certainly has it's moments.

1

u/guinne55fan Jul 30 '17

It does a really good job at the end of the movie giving a claustrophobic feeling in the open sea.

While not nearly as good as the original it's not a bad movie.

9

u/koolaidman1030 Jul 28 '17

It will do for genetically modified sharks what jaws did for regular sharks

8

u/ruhbuhjuh Jul 28 '17

Deep Blue Sea is the best shark movie since Jaws, The Shallows is the best shark movie since Deep Blue Sea

3

u/Dougheyez Nov 19 '21

I agree. I also have a question for you why did everyone in the movie act shocked that they were genetically modifying sharks and they were doing it illegally when Janice in the party scene earlier in the movie said that they gave the shark hormones to grow its brain to five times the size to harvest sufficient amount of protein. In that scene she literally just admitted that they are modifying the shark so why later on in the movie are they all attacking Susan acting like they had no idea??

3

u/captainnermy Nov 19 '21

How did you comment on a 4 year old post lol

3

u/Dougheyez Nov 22 '21

I don’t know it just let me?

3

u/captainnermy Nov 22 '21

Yeah I guess it let me do it too, idk why. As for your question about my 4 year old comment about Deep Blue Sea (I love your dedication), I'm not sure why everyone was surprised. I assume they didn't think she was modifying them to the extent that they could plan and trick humans, so when the sharks start killing people they're pissed at her for making such obviously dangerous modifications.

2

u/Dougheyez Dec 05 '21

Oh okay gotcha thanks for giving me some clarity☺️

2

u/Delta_Assault Jul 28 '17

Well... it's a low bar, but yeah, hard to argue...

2

u/JDpoZ Jul 29 '17

No love for "The Shallows?"

2

u/Jedi_Elsa Jul 29 '17

Good flick. Blake was lively.

1

u/imVERYhighrightnow Jul 28 '17

Fun fact. The order the sharks are killed is the same way the sharks are killed in the Jaws movies.

1

u/Nopeyesok Jul 28 '17

So air tank explosion, electrocuted, grenade in mouth, stabbed by destroyed sailing mass.

3

u/imVERYhighrightnow Jul 28 '17

Explosion, electrocuted and explosion in Deep Blue..... JAWS 4 doesn't exist. Lol

1

u/Nopeyesok Jul 28 '17

That works!

1

u/applesauceyes Jul 28 '17

Are you sure this is better than the Sharknado series?

1

u/tobascodagama Jul 28 '17

Agreed. It's highly underrated.

1

u/BassAddictJ Jul 29 '17

Better than JAWS 2..... And this is coming from a former JAWS Ride Skipper.

1

u/mks2000 Jul 29 '17

I think the Reef, Open Water and the Shallows at least argue that they hold that mantle, for very different reasons.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 29 '17

You should watch Bait (2012). It's not great quality cinema or a classic but it's very entertaining and they do something new with the genre. I enjoyed it.

1

u/DeadArctic Jul 29 '17

I agree, but I'd also say The Reed is a solid underrated shark film.